One often-quoted statistic about the problem of domestic and sexual violence in PNG is that two-thirds of married women have been hit by their husbands.

MSF provides treatment to hundreds of victims of domestic and sexual violence at two support centres.

This week the organisation's president Dr Unni Karunakara visited the centres, in Lae on the north coast and in Tari in the southern highlands, to try and convince the government to devote more of its resources to the problem.

"If you look at the number of women who come to us reporting rape, for example, that is about 60 a month in both Lae and Tari together," he said.

"There are other (kinds of) intimate partner violence, etc, so the numbers are much higher than that."

Dr Karunakara says the level of violence faced by women in PNG is shocking for a country that's not in a state of war or civil unrest.

But he says it is hard to know just how big the problem is.

"If I have a road accident and if I was raped it's all lumped together," he said.

"So there is no disaggregation of data, or data is not reported in a specific enough way to know the exact magnitude of the problem across the country."

MSF's family support centres are a one-stop shop for the victims of violence. Women who have been bashed are offered free medical care.

Rape victims are given treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and emergency contraception to prevent pregnancies.

But Dr Karunakara says one of the most important services they provide is counselling.

"What we find is that women are not being heard," he said.

"They find it very hard to find services sometimes, support they can get, from a police station or from the legal system.

"So very often the first port of call for them is the family support centre where they find a listening ear."

The PNG government has set up its own family support centres in five of the country's 22 provinces, but the range and quality of services they provide varies.

Last year an MSF investigation found some centres did not meet minimum standards of care and staff were not medically qualified or properly trained.

"We don't even have counselling courses offered by recognised institutions in the country," Dr Karunakara said.

"I think in the whole country we just have two who are qualified and who are trained in Melbourne. The others are one with trainings that we give to others to do."

ReplicatedUme Wainetti, director of the Family and Sexual Violence Action Committee, says as well the general lack of services and trained personnel, there is a drastic shortage of accommodation.

"When a woman is raped, there's nowhere really to keep the woman to make sure she completes her treatment because to avoid HIV one needs to take treatment I think for a month," she said.

"And most times when the women go, they don't come back."

While he is in PNG, Dr Karunakara has been meeting with government representatives to explain how MSF's approach can be replicated around the country.

"While long-term measures are being put in place to address the high levels of violence in the country, immediate life-saving activities that women can benefit from, not just women but in some cases, men, and in some cases, children, can benefit from should not be forgotten," he said.